jblogreview.blogspot.com attacks Eidensohn brothers and the "old" Torah

Thejblogreview.blogspot.com mystery person nobody knows who it is, attacks the Eidensohn brothers for their Torah ideas about marriage and divorce.

By Rabbi Dovid E. Eidensohn/www.torahhalacha.blogspot.com/845-578-1917

The mystery author of the jblogreview.blogspot.com has several posts where he rips into my brother and myself for our Torah ideas about marriage and divorce. I am writing this to present the two sides, the Eidensohn reliance on clear sources in Shulchan Aruch and poskim, and those who feel that the Shulchan Aruch is not compatible with today’s moral standards.

My blogspot has 61 posts, mostly about the divorce and marital issues we discuss here. For a fuller understanding of the Eidensohn position, go to www.torahhalacha.blogspot.com  my blog or go to www.daattorah.blogspot.com my brother’s blog and type in coerced Gittin or anything about these topics.

My comments will be in italics and bold. Parts of the post not necessary for comments are omitted and you can go to the jblog itself to see the entire original.

Monday, December 8, 2014

Daat Torah on the Seminary Scandal

The Daas Torah Blog of Rabbi Daniel Eidensohn allows readers to descend into a bizarre segment of Orthodoxy that few Jews probably realize even exists…My response -  Laws of divorce and marriage and family are “bizarre segments of Orthodox that few Jews probably realize even exists.” I know a lot of Jews who understand the sanctity of marriage and the negative sides of divorce. I also know a lot of Jews who understand that a woman whose husband never did anything terrible to her but she has problems with his personality or some such thing should work on the marriage instead of tearing the family apart. I also know a lot of husbands whose wives destroyed the marriage and almost destroyed the husband, turning children against him, draining him financially, even jailing him.

A large part of Eidensohn's blog is devoted to issues of Agunah. Eidensohn also has a brother - Rabbi Dovid Eidensohn - who also runs a blog almost exclusively devoted to the topic.

Most people understand the agunah issue as follows:

Some husbands unfortunately refuse to give their wives Gittin even when the marriage is clearly over. They use the withholding of a Get either as leverage or simply as revenge against their wives. This kind of behavior is of course outrageous. My comment – I deal with husbands who learn the hard way what happens when people like jblog demonize men in a broken marriage. There are many reasons that are not vicious leverage or revenge that cause a husband not to give his wife a GET in a broken marriage. I deal regularly with such problems and I deal with the husbands and they are so demonized by the secular courts and even the Orthodox world that they can be destroyed. There are even well know ways for a woman to destroy her husband, get the children to hate him, drain him financially, have him put in jail, and have a gag order forcing him never to publicize the hideous terror he endures. And these blogs with their hate for men who don’t fork over the GET when the people like jblog want them to, are responsible for this hate and demonizing of men, many of whom are not monsters but are scared for very good reasons. This is a very important topic and I would like to develop it, but not now as we want to keep things moving quoting the jblog. I have many posts on this topic in my blog www.torahhalacha.blogspot.com .

Not the Eidensohn's and company. They see the Get as something a man sometimes "has" to give and sometimes does not. It all depends on the circumstances. So, if the husband has "done nothing halachically wrong" during the course of the marriage, he may not be obligated to give a Get. The Beis Din needs to make this determination based on the evidence presented to them. Furthermore, if the man is not "obligated" to give the Get than you cannot force him - even if the marriage is clearly over. Based on this understanding, the Eidensohn's and company often take issue Batei Din that try force husbands to give Gittin. In their view, the forced Get in this case would be invalid in any case, and would just produce more halachic problems. My comment This is another topic that could use corrections. But let’s continue and not quibble about the jblog  misunderstanding of GET law. I have many posts in my blog www.torahhalacha.blogspot.com about coercing a husband and GET law and my brother does also on his blog www.daattorah.blogspot.com .

For the above reasons, the Eidensohn brothers often believe that it is wrong for a woman to take action to try to get herself a Get. My comment    Yes, I believe that some women are rushing out of a marriage, especially if there are children. Hate organizations like ORA gather people into the street where the husband and his family are humiliated and eventually broken until the husband gave a GET. ALL OF THE FORCED GITTIN GIVEN BY ORA ARE INVALID AND CHILDREN BORN FROM IT ARE MAY BE MAMZERIM. THE WOMAN IS FORBIDDEN TO BE WITH HER NEW HUSBAND AND OLD HUSBAND IF SHE REMARRIES WITH SUCH AN INVALID GET. Hate blogs such as jblog simply feed the fire to produce more invalid Gittin.

Children of divorce suffer terribly, but ORA is concerned about the mother. ORA is led by someone who has publicly called for the murder of husbands who does not give a GET on demand when the marriage is broken.

 And, they certainly oppose using the secular courts under any circumstances. My comment – This is wrong. This jblog reviewer is ignorant of things that he talks about. A Beth Din can give permission to go to court when it is warranted.

…And, what if the women tries to bring her husband to Beis Din? Well, he doesn't have to show up. My comment – This is a lie from an ignorant person who owns a blog.

He can say he does not like her Beis Din and he wants to go to his own Beis Din. My comment – Another lie based upon ignorance. In such a case each side selects a judge and the two judges select a third judge.

There is little doubt in my mind that deep in the recesses of this Daat Torah community lies some very misogynistic ideas. I believe that at their core they believe that women are less than men and that women should be subservient to men ... I think that this bias against women fuels them to search for halachic literature that supports them. And, make no mistake - it is not hard to find such halachic literature, especially considering that much of halacha was written hundreds of years ago when this view of women was prevalent. In fact, much of the "support" that they find is really just a reflection of the mores of the time, and not actually "halachic" strictly speaking. My comment – You believe that people who believe strongly in children and marriage and oppose divorce unless it is really necessary are old fashioned and have an old fashioned Shulchan Aruch based upon an old fashioned Torah. And when you have to deal with all of the children broken by divorce, and with the children from forced Gittin who come to marry into the Haredi world and are told that they are mamzerim, what will you write on your blog?

The Shulchan Aruch Even Hoezer 154 at the end of Seder HaGet writes, “A person must take great care not to be involved with making Gittin unless he is an expert in the laws of Gittin. Because there are many important details. And it is very easy to stumble in them. And this leads to mamzeruth.” And yet, we see people ripping into my opinions on coerced Gittin, with no sources of their own, simply because they disagree with what I say and what I prove is the opinion of the Shulchan Aruch EH 77 paragraphs 2,3: Reb Yosef Karo, the Ramo, the Vilna Gaon, the Beis Shmuel, the Chelkas Mechokake, etc. And I respond, “If the Vilna Gaon #5 says clearly that it is forbidden to coerce a GET, and nobody disagrees with this, why are you disagreeing?” I have asked many people that question and never got an answer.

The Vilna Gaon on that statement of the Shulchan Aruch that only qualified people should deal with Gittin brings a source as Kiddushin 13a. It says there that those who make Gittin without knowing the laws properly are worse than the generation of the Flood, and greater punishments comes into the world than what happened in the time of Noach.

I made a Beth Din for Gittin under HaGaon Rav Yosef Shalom Elyashev zt”l and I asked for permission to use his name for it, which is an incredible chutzpah, but he gave it immediately. We dealt with Russian Jews who at that time had no rabbis who could give Gittin. The Rov at that time was fighting the New York State GET law, and I spoke with him at length about coerced Gittin. He told me that any Beth Din that makes Gittin with coercions not accepted in the Shulchan Aruch loses its right to give Gittin. Women divorced in that Beth Din must get another GET. If they did not, and remarried with the GET from the non-Shulchan Aruch Beth Din, her GET is not accepted, which could make great problems for her children from the second marriage and for her. It is possible that her children will be considered mamzerim and that she would be forbidden to be with either or first or second husband. When that happens, chas vishalom, and it is happening right now, with many women, and children are being born from these questionable Gittin, what will klal Yisroel do? What can we do? We will split. Those who don’t believe in the Shulchan Aruch will marry the mamzerim, and the rest of us won’t. This is the ultimate child molestation. And the people who are responsible for it will answer to a Higher Source. Recently, a Sefer Mishpitei Yisroel about the laws of Gittin and those who transgress it has come out. Gedolei HaDor Reb Chaim Kanievsky and Rav Shmuel HaLevi Wosner and others have said what Reb Elyashev zt”l told me, that any woman who received a GET in a Beth Din that coerces husbands in violation of the Shulchan Aruch, that the GET is invalid and she must have another GET. Now, what do the bloggers who are attacking me going to do when the mamzerim come to the Yeshiva and then want to marry?  Will they publish in a blog that they are sorry?